Colonial officials criminalized customary practices like compensation they found morally reprehensible

Evidence

This did not mean, Panty explained, that the commandants were no longer to refer to custom; but they were now formally required to prosecute such acts allowed by custom that they found morally reprehensible, as well as all breaches of the administration’s public ordinances, in the interest of public welfare. Included in this category were “cannibalism” and “ritual murder … whose legitimacy in the eyes of the natives we will not accept,” and “the numerous crimes that are not punished by a penalty, inflicted in the name of society, but by compensation accorded to the victim or his family.” — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 430